The present invention relates to a photographic printer and more particularly to a photographic printer which is suitable for making prints from a roll of film having intermixed negatives of full-size and half-size pictures thereon.
In commercial photo-finishing laboratories, a large number of rolls of film are connected to one another forming a single long film web to enable bulk processing. Since rolls of 35 mm-size film are provided in two formats or sizes, namely full-size or half size pictures, the single long film web made of multiple rolls of 35 mm film often includes pictures of both formats or sizes.
Conventionally, photographic printers are provided with means for reading data such as the type and format of the film or the film size, which are recorded on a tape when prints are made. Utilizing this data a photographic printer is controlled to change various printing factors such as the printing lenses, exposures, sizes of a framing mask and so forth.
One drawback that occurs in association with such photographic printers is that various mechanisms are required to change from printing of one size of picture to printing of different size pictures, for example full-size and half-size pictures.